Two hydrogens and an oxygen that tried to be milk and coffee

Water. It’s a hot topic all around the world. And when you’re in the Peace Corps, even hotter. Since arriving in Costa Rica, I have only been drinking boiled water. They say the water here is safe, but every now and then there can be a bicho in it that could very easily make you sick. So for now, I continue to boil it, like they recommend. But that’s not the point of this story. The point is the following: I never know what’s going to come out of my faucet.

Last week, I woke up, bleary-eyed one morning and headed to my (private) bathroom still half-asleep to brush my teeth. I turned on the faucet and pouring out came what looked like muddy flood runoff or slightly watery coffee. Costa Rica being the land of coffee, the latter didn’t seem too impossible. It woke me up rather abruptly and I questioned my host family. They seemed to believe that this was a common yearly occurrence after Holy Week here…something having to do with cleaning out some sort of pipes or system (at least that’s what I understood in Spanish). So we just waited it out and drank the next run of clear water. Earlier this week, I went to wash my face in the bathroom, and this time milk came out. Okay, not milk literally, but the water was as white as milk pouring right out of the faucet like you could just hold a bowl full of granola below it and grab a spoon. Instead, I washed my face with it, and who knows if it made it cleaner or dirtier, but I wasn’t really hungry for granola. Finally, two nights ago, nothing came out of my faucet. Nothing. No water to be found…not even milky nor muddy. No one in my host family was sure why, and no one else (neighbors, etc) was experiencing this. We just waited it out (it lasted about a day or so), and though it didn’t last long, it seemed much longer. And finally finally, on the topic of ‘no water’, this morning, in the shower halfway through, my high pressure, rain-shower-like showerhead slowed to nearly a dribble and turned scalding hot. I quickly finished and proceeded on with my morning in my regular fashion.

After such incidents of surprise lately by what does (or doesn’t) come out of my faucet, I have really begun to appreciate water. Pure, clean, clear water…something we maybe take for granted in the US to always flow clear and potable with the turn of a knob. But since being here I have learned a lot about and appreciated water (I don’t even have it nearly as hard as my friends in the Peace Corps in other parts of the world). So, even though my water may have bichos in it, I can just boil them out; If it’s milky or muddy, I just have to be patient and wait till it runs clear again; If there is none, let’s hope I didn’t just go for a run or hope I have some boiled reserve in the fridge to drink. It’s that simple.

Soon, the water will be flowing plentiful, but this time from the sky.

And it won’t stop until November.

Sleep tight. Don´t let the bedbugs bite.

This week marks the midway point of training. This means three things - one: we still have six weeks to go (ugh); two: we’ve already completed six weeks (yay); and three: it’s about time my first big challenge comes up (more on that later).

The other day someone said something to me that really resonated with the state of things lately. They said that time in training (or Peace Corps in general) passes in the following manner – slow days, fast months. To me, that couldn’t be truer. Training is a period of intense learning whose days seem to drag by, yet it’s hard to believe I’ve been here over a month. During training, not only are we learning how to carry out international development work five days a week (sometimes six), but among that, we are learning how to design sustainable projects, how to do community analysis, how to speak like a true Tico, how to make authentic Costa Rican food, how to get around the country safely, how to culturally adjust, how to deal with unwanted attention, how to implement non-formal education techniques, how to gesture a’la Tico and all the meanwhile maintain a level of enthusiasm and professionalism while we feel our way around this murky pool with our eyes somewhat closed. Phew! And that only covers one-fourth of it. So, with that in mind, I’m happy we’re halfway there. In three weeks we find out our permanent site placement for the two years. I’m learning more and more each day what I want for my site, and hope that wherever it is, it will fit me well (and elicit more than a few visitors).

Until now, things have been going quite smoothly in training. That’s why I thought it’s about time my first big challenge comes up. Well, call it a challenge or not, it’s just one of those things that is added to the list of cultural adjustment difficulties; one of those things that just makes a hard day a little bit harder; one of those things that makes you want to go retreat to your own comfortable world of whatever bit of American culture you have with you – for me that is my music and my Yoga Journal and News Photographer magazines my mother sent from home.

So onto my situation…….for the past month or so my legs have been covered in bites…..an absurd amount of bites…more like it looked like I had chicken pox or some rare disease. At first I thought they were just mosquito bites, and then I realized that this was not possible considering I wear repellent almost daily and mosquitoes aren’t really that big of a problem right now. After my real mother and a couple friends here in the Peace Corps suggested this, I began to research the situation of bedbugs on the Internet. Turns out, I most likely have bedbugs. Though this is not 100% confirmed, my situation seemed all too similar to that of my research. So there you have it, problem solved. Weeeelllll, not really. Source of unknown bites solved. Situation? Not solved.

As one knows, getting rid of bedbugs is quite a process…..if you live in the States, that is. But if you live in Costa Rica and aren’t all that sure what bedbugs are, all you do is spray your mattress with Raid, put it out in the hot Costa Rican sun all day, continue to inhale fumes of Raid nightly, and hope for the best. Well, that’s what I was instructed to do. So that’s what I did. But until I was able to do that, I took certain precautionary measures to prevent any further bites. These measures, perhaps a bit extreme, gave me, if anything, peace of mind. They included the following:

1. Sneaking around my host family’s kitchen late at night looking for garbage bags to sleep on.
2. Lining my bed with the garbage bags.
3. Wearing socks and tucking my socks into my pants.
4. Wearing longs sleeves and a scarf (if I had mittens, I would have worn those too).
5. Sleeping with the light on (since bed bugs like dark and warmth).
6. Wearing an eye mask to block out the light.
7. Sleeping on top of the bed, on top of the garbage bags, sans covers.
8. Fan on full power (of course, to blow any bugs away).

See below for this ridiculousness:

I have slept two nights in my supposed bedbug-free bed. I have to believe that the power of positive thinking works, because I’m hoping that it can overpower that fact that Raid actually probably doesn’t kill bedbugs. Buuuuuuuut, we’ll see. I mean, what is Peace Corps without ants in my tea, and bugs in my bed. Right?

In other news, today I made cream cheese brownies, and got three packages from Mom. Now, that’s a good day in the Peace Corps.

Side note: I have been meaning to post this picture for awhile now. It´s my last live memory of my parents at the Denver International Airport. Thinking of you daily!

Not much to say....but some to show.

These first few pictures are from my family´s cabin in the mountains that we went to over Holy Week.....a time when pretty much the entire country shuts down.

This is their pool which I swam in every day:


We saw toucans, igunas and hunted for Tilapia......with a gun. Then we ate them for lunch (the tilapia, not the toucans nor iguanas):


This was lunch one day, and it was DEEEEELICIOUS:

Then, when we returned, I spent Easter with two fellow Peace Corps trainees. We went to the mountains and hiked to some waterfalls. It was steep and we were soaked in sweat by the time we arrived:

But, here we are!

That´s all I´ve got for now. I will share more....in words, again soon. My mind is overloaded right now after hitting the books again.

Farmer´s markets, serendipitous discoveries, and fish-egg-looking fruits

Todays post is dedicated to my lovely friend Mary Rizos, who I think about rather often. It is dedicated to her because she is also a photographer and is the queen of dyptychs (two photos paired together). I´ve created a few dyptychs in her honor of todays activities.

First, it began on a street corner waiting for our Language and Culture Facilitator to arrive to begin class:

Once she arrived, we had class in the kitchen of a fellow trainee´s host family. There we learned one of the most important lessons ever - how to cook arrecache, tortillas, and of course, something sweet, arroz con leche (rice pudding Costa Rican style), the best part? We got to enjoy it all, only an hour after eating lunch:

After class, my host father, who owns a fruteria, goes to the Ferria de Agricultor (farmer´s market) to buy all his produce for his tienda for the next morning. It was a lot like Missoula´s farmer´s market. And by a lot, I mean.........well, not very much, but some similar produce at least, and by some, I mean.......well, I can´t think of one thing actually:

Below, the picture on the left was at the market. The picture on the right is my host father in front of his produce shop (it was closed....we just dropped off the goods):

Oh, and I almost forgot.....the importance of the title of this blog. I´ve jotted down some moments over the past week of things I thought were interesting, difficult, culturally challenging, fun, exciting, random, etc. Here they are:

First, I really miss Peanut Butter (it´s few and far between here), so when I was in San Jose a couple weeks ago, I splurged on a six dollar jar of JIF. One night in my room I was craving a spoonful, but since I had nothing normal to dip in the peanut butter, I decided to try the Starburst I had left over from my time in the States. Much to my surprise, Strawberry Starburst and Peanut Butter became the most serendipitous discovery I have made in a long time. (Hint hint: we don´t have Starburst here, and now I´m all out. Wink wink).

Second, I laugh at myself when I have to try and explain something difficult in Spanish. Examples as of late are explaining the meaning of AC/DC´s song ´Overdose´ to my 30-something-year-old host brother, and also explaining the meaning of ´picky´in Spanish, as in ´I´m picky with my beers and I´m picky with my boys.´ Apparently, they have no such word.

Third, was a lovely, very Costa Rican moment. I was hanging out with my host father in our backyard, and he picks this ball-looking thing from a tree, pops open the top and hands it to me with a spoon. I look inside and it appears to be filled with slimy fish eggs, each one covered in a clear amniotic-type sac. I reluctantly put some on my spoon and place them inside my mouth. Surprisingly, this granadilla fruit has now become one of my favorite things to eat!

Finally, on the topic of food. I think of my friend Laura who is in the Peace Corps right now in Uganda......there she is eating potatoes and grasshoppers for dinner as there is often a food shortage in her town. Here, I think I eat every two hours. I am never hungry, always full, and always willing to try new foods. What a contrast. But on that note, I have also begun to eat bugs. Here, there are hormigas, or ants, everywhere. They infest foods, they are on my bedroom floor, they are on the kitchen counter, they are in my shower. They´re tiny, but they´re there. A few days ago, I realized I had been eating them in my cereal. When I poured the last bowl from the bag, I noticed what I thought were whole grains in my Komplete all along, actually turned out to be a bunch of little teeny tiny ants that I had been munching on every morning with my 2% milk. I promptly threw that bowl away. But today, when I noticed ants floating in my tea water, I chalked it all up to a cultural experience, and continued to sip my morning Earl Grey.

Dia-a-dia, dia-por-dia

Friday during safety/security and cultural training we had a session on culture shock. Basically, what I took from it is the following:

1. I’m over the honeymoon stage.
2. I’m on a steep upwards (sometimes downwards) hill towards temporary adjustment.
3. The hill will go back down yet, again.
4. Eventually I will get back up that hill towards feeling at home.

Also, the biggest thing I learned was to take things dia-por-dia, or day-by-day. So that’s what I’ve begun to do. Looking ahead to the next two years can be difficult and somewhat challenging, but my new motto has helped me to enjoy the little things of the Pura Vida which I am so lucky to be living.

In honor of celebrating dia-por-dia, I will post a number of pictures of my day-to-day life. You can see more photos at: CLICK HERE!

(Oh, and I´m sure many of you won´t believe this, but I was forced by my situation to buy a POINT AND SHOOT Canon camera. I know.....unheard of! But there are definitely times where it would be a huge risk to be carrying around my large camera.....they place Peace Corps volunteers in marginal communities for a reason. Anyway, some of these pics are from that camera and some are from my regular one).

Drinking my first Pipa, fresh from the tree:

This is the house I live in:
This is the street I live on (and my goofy host dad, Jorge):

My backyard is filled with sweet flora and fauna. Today I saw an iguana there, but this is a picture of something else in my backyard:

Hiking in the Chilamate Rainforest Eco-Retreat Center in Sarapiqui:

Presenting seasonal calendars during Technical Training (a community assessment tool):
Emilia, our language facilitator and my language class in Language Training:
Eating a cake I made for my mama tica´s birthday:

And finally, I just had to share the video of my host mom´s birthday party. It was she, my host father, and my friend Lindsay, also a Peace Corps Volunteer (small, but lovely). And please ignore the horrible singing (and the fact that we sang the song wrong):